Azerbaijani opposition activist and politician Tofig Yagublu, sentenced to nine years, has gone on a hunger strike to protest his placement in solitary confinement. His daughter believes this is the authorities' retaliation for a protest her brother, Rahim, held outside the hotel where Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev was staying in Washington.

Tofig Yagublu's punishment was cited as an attempt to obstruct guards from conducting an inspection of his cell in the Baku pretrial detention center. However, according to his daughter, there was no obstruction of the guards' legitimate requests. After being placed in solitary confinement, Yagublu went on a hunger strike.

This incident comes amid another event: on April 19, Aliyev's security guards violently dispersed a rally in Washington by Azerbaijani diaspora groups calling for the release of political prisoners. Rahim Yagublu himself reported being attacked by the president's bodyguards. The Azerbaijani Embassy in the United States accused the protesters of posing a security threat to the head of state, who was visiting Washington to attend a meeting of the Peace Council.

As a reminder, Tofig Yaqubldu, a member of the Coordination Center of the National Council of Democratic Forces (NCDF) and the Musavat Party, was sentenced to nine years in prison in 2025 on charges of fraud and document forgery. He denied the charges and claimed his prosecution was politically motivated.